Mom accuses clothing store of selling 'itsy-bitsy' shorts to tweens: 'We live in a culture sexualized enough as it is'

One mom is frustrated because she can’t find age-appropriate shorts for her daughter. (Photo: Getty Images)

Moms are accusing Target of selling “teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy” and “hοοker style” shorts after one was unable to find clothing for her 10-year-old daughter attending basketball camp.

“Dear Target, you know I love you…but we need to talk about tween girls for a minute,” a Midwestern mom named Carolyn, who blogs under the name Assignment: Mom, wrote in a June 8 Facebook post. “I get that shorts are, by definition, short. But where are the mid-length shorts? The approaching-knee-length shorts? The shorts that don’t require built-in underwear she’d undoubtedly find uncomfortable? The options girls my daughter’s age have seem to be limited to these or skin-tight leggings (which she cannot stand).”

The mother of four kids, ages 10, 7, 4, and 1, continues, “I don’t fancy myself a prude, but neither do I take the responsibility to teach my daughters about modesty and appropriate dress lightly. We live in a culture sexualized enough as it is; I wish I could go shopping for my tween and not have to worry about her backside or her underwear showing in a pair of athletic shorts. …

“Until I can find that on the racks of your girl’s department, I’ll be shopping for shorts for my disappointed tween daughter in the boy’s section,” she concluded. “In the meantime, consider the challenge issued: it’s time to do better by our tween girls.”

The post has gotten 5.9K reactions, 2.4K shares, and 1.1K comments. A woman named Kate Paddock shared the post, writing, “100% but it’s not just Target. I went to like five places before finding Bella clothes, it’s ridiculous people are designing little [girls’ clothes] like “hοοker style…yup I just said it and nope I don’t care who it makes mad.”

Paddock added, “If you attempt to tell me by teaching my child modesty that I’m shaming her ‘body’ I’ll just delete you because I don’t care. Because what I’m actually teaching her is that she doesn’t need to flaunt what she has just to prove she’s worthy of value.”

Carolyn’s post also attracted the following comments: “I had this problem at Target for my 7-year-old too. All the options were the same length: booty shorts. We picked out a pair from the boy’s section”; “Little girls section has lots of short-shorts too. I had a hard time finding a decent pair for my 6-year-old to wear to school”; and “My daughter wears boy shorts or shorts with black stretch pants that she cuts underneath.”

Someone else agreed that the problem was bigger than Target: “I went to Walmart to get my toddler daughter a pair of shorts for soccer and ended up picking them up from the boys’ section. For my two and a half year old! The ones in the girls’ section were all basically short tights, which she finds very uncomfortable.”

“Raising girls today is not always easy, but finding comfortable athletic shorts for them in the girls’ section should be,” Carolyn, who declined to provide her last name, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “My oldest daughter was disappointed, but not entirely surprised to have to shop at the boys’ section for basketball shorts.

“Many have pointed out I am free to shop at other, more specialty stores, and I completely agree,” she says. “It’s simply disappointing that in a store like Target, that offers so many necessities, longer-length athletic shorts in the girls’ section wasn’t an option.”

Carolyn, who shops at Target often, says her only desire is that her daughter is comfortable and confident while playing sports.

A representative of Target did not respond to Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment. But the retailer is not alone in this criticism — parents have also slammed Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie for selling what they consider sexy clothing to young girls.